After revealing yesterday that BlackBerry 10 is in the final stages of testing, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins today revealed a few more interesting tidbits of information about his company's new platform and the devices that'll run it. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Heins said that RIM will soon be visiting carriers to demonstrate to them a pair of "beta" versions of BlackBerry 10 handsets. The exec said that the physical design of these phones is finished and that the software is close to being done.
When it comes to launch in early 2013, Heins reaffirmed that there will initially be both a full-touch BlackBerry 10 phone as well as a device that sports both a physical keyboard and a touchscreen. He added that there will eventually be six models, three of which will be touch-only while the other three will have hardware keyboards. Another feature that Heins said the BlackBerry 10 phones will include is a removable battery, which he said was meant to appeal to heavy users that'd like to be able to swap in an extra battery rather than carry a spare charger.
While we don't know the exact specs of the BlackBerry 10 handsets that RIM has up its sleeve, it's good to hear that the company is planning a mix of full-touch and QWERTY-equipped models so that interested customers will have several options of each type to choose from. The inclusion of removable batteries is also something that I'm sure many folks will be glad to see, especially since current BlackBerry users are accustomed to the feature. BlackBerry 10's early 2013 debut may still a bit of a ways off, but at least anyone that's curious about RIM's offerings are steadily seeing more and more details about the upcoming products emerge. Are any of you thinking about checking out BlackBerry 10 once it debuts or are you still on the fence?
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